More Ontario gas plant emails recovered, PC critic says

CBC

Progressive Conservative energy critic Vic Fedeli says Ontario’s privacy commissioner has informed him that more email documents have turned up that relate to the costly cancellation of a pair of gas plants by the Liberal government.

Fedeli told reporters during a Wednesday afternoon conference call that the documents were previously believed to have been "unrecoverable," but evidently were not deleted as the privacy commissioner had been told.

Fedeli could not immediately say how many documents had been found.

Last month, Ann Cavoukian, Ontario's information and privacy commissioner, released a report that said Liberal staffers had broken the law by deleting emails related to the cancelled Mississauga and Oakville gas plants.

Cavoukian reported that the staffers also tried to remove the data from government computers after deleting the emails.

The Canadian Press reported that Cavoukian’s office was due to issue a statement on the newly discovered batch of emails on Wednesday.

The opposition parties have alleged that the email deletions were part of an effort to conceal the costs of cancelling the gas plants in Oakville and Mississauga several years ago.

The total cost of scrapping the two plants is currently estimated to be $585 million, well above the figures initially quoted by the governing Liberals.